Cnut - Hidden Agenda

By Tony Nash/Stig Larssen and Stig Larssen

A phone call to a harassed lawyer from an old girlfriend, mentioning a murder that is to be committed, has her frightened out of her wits, and she hands it over to Cnut, who meets the woman, only to see her shot dead in front of him, before she can speak.

Her assassination, and the ransacking of her house, proves to him that what she knew has to be has to be serious, and that the murder victim she had no chance to name would doubtless involve someone important.

But who is that someone?

To give him a chance of finding out the name of the victim, Cnut takes on the enormous task of checking every one of the deaths that occur in the Greater Oslo area.

Even so, the death of the man Marit Linden wanted to report would have escaped Cnut's widespread net, were it not for the sharp eyes of an ambitious junior police officer, who takes a call from a woman who is worried that her husband has not come home, and he passes that information to Cnut.

Lars Mandik, CEO of Endronis Pharmaceuticals, has died at his desk, certified as a heart attack by the firm's doctor, but instead of reporting the death, Rolf Kammers, the new and rogue deputy CEO has had the body placed in the firm's cold room, and made arrangements for it to be cremated early the next morning, intending to inform Mandik's wife only shortly before the cremation.

That fact alone, in Cnut's book, carries the stink of hidden motive, and instead, he has the body removed to the police pathology suite.

The autopsy confirms that Mandik was murdered.

Cnut knows where, how, and when the murder was committed, and almost certainly who committed it, but not why.

He is incensed that the murderer will get away with it, but it is only the first of a series of murders, where he knows who the killer is, but cannot find enough evidence for an arrest. 

A dark organisation, with immense funding, is buying up major companies in Norway, and where the owner will not sell, he is killed or incapacitated, and the reason is cloaked in mystery.

The lives of Cnut and Ilse come under serious threat, but he does not give up, and finally works out the reason behind the murders.

He realises that attempting to use the police force to take the action needed to bring the guilty to justice would be the worst thing possible.

Not for the first time in his career, he has to cross the line no police officer should cross, and resort to extraordinary, unlawful measures to achieve his objective – measures that he knows are likely to lead to the loss of his career - and probably his life.

Can his plan lead to the destruction of the largest ever criminal enterprise in Scandinavia?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Nash/Stig Larssen
• Release date: Nov 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215288719

Tony Nash/Stig Larssen

Tony Nash is the author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels, who began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

Book preview

Dear Reader,

Buying this book entitles you to any other one of my other novels of your choosing, sent free to your email address. Contact me at [e-mail], telling me what happens to Cnut at the end of this book, and which other novel you would like sent to you.

Copyright © Tony Nash October 2022

This is a work of pure fiction, and any similarity between any character in it and any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional. Where actual places, buildings and locations are named, they are used fictionally.

All rights reserved.

Other works by this author:

THE TONY DYCE/NORFOLK THRILLERS:

Murder by Proxy

Murder on the Back Burner

Murder on the Chess Board

Murder on the High ‘C’

Murder on Tiptoes

Bled and Breakfast

THE JOHN HUNTER/MET. COP THRILLERS:

Carve Up

Single to Infinity

The Most Unkindest Cut

The Iago Factor

Blockbuster

Bloodlines

Beyond Another Curtain

HISTORICAL NOVELS – THE NORFOLK TRILOGY:

A Most Capricious Whim

A Handful of Salt

A Handful of Courage (WWI EPIC)

No Tears For Tomorrow  WWII EPIC)

THE HARRY PAGE THRILLERS:

Tripled Exposure

Unseemly Exposure

So Dark, The Spiral

THE NORWEGIAN SERIES – author Stig Larssen:

LOOT

THE MAN WHO BIT THE BULLET

CNUT – Past Present

CNUT – The Isiaih Prophesies

CNUT – Paid in Spades

CNUT – The Sin Debt

CNUT – They Tumble Headlong

CNUT – Night Prowler

CNUT -  Cry Wolf

CNUT -  When The Pie Was Opened

CNUT – The Bottom of the Pot

CNUT -  Mind Games

CNUT -  Nemesis

CNUT -  Cut and Come Again

CNUT -  The Man Who Did It Doggy Fashion

CNUT -  The Man From Next Week

CNUT -  Cabal of Silence

CNUT -  Deadly Premise

CNUT -  Deadly Relations

CNUT -  Hide the Lady

OTHER NOVELS:

The Devil Deals Death 

The Makepeace Manifesto

‘Y’ Oh ‘Y’;  The Thursday Syndrome

The Last Laugh;  Panic

The Sinister Side of the Moon

Hell and High Water

Hardrada’s Hoard

CHAPTER ONE

Restraining a cynical smile at what he was about to do, Fredrik Sanderson strolled into Silje Hansen’s office, just before lunchtime.

She took one look at the thick brief under his arm and shook her head, ‘Oh, no, Fredrik. Don’t tell me you intend to unload that one on me.’

His pretend innocent smile would have fooled no one, ‘How do you know what this is?’

‘I know poison when I see it. Look - I’m up to my eyes in the Sergil case, working late every day, and I have to go to court in a fortnight with that one. Jon’s disaster of a case I need like a hedgehog needs a diet of slug pellets. He knew it couldn’t be won, and decided to play sick.’

Sandersen shook his head, ‘You know that’s unfair, Silje. The man had a heart attack.’

‘And we both know why – that thing under your arm is enough to give anyone a coronary. Heavy physical crime is your area, not mine. I haven’t been involved with that kind of thing since my first year here, as a junior, and then only on the periphery of one case. Inexperience in something like that is a recipe for disaster. Surely you can see that. Borgil is a crime boss, a multi-murderer, and a lifelong, hardened criminal, quite likely to snuff out any barrister who loses his case in a fit of pique, and I like my life. Three reliable witnesses saw him knife the victim, and then hurl him from a second-floor window. The man will be a paraplegic for what is left of his life, and it’s amazing he’s still alive. The police have a slam-dunk case, and ours is unwinnable. I’m strictly white collar crime, and have been for almost twenty years. You have Harald and Rolf who handle physical crime. Why aren’t they taking it on?’

‘They’re both already on other important cases, and I have two that I am handling simultaneously – juggling them alternatively with as much finesse as I can manage, and only just getting away with it.’

‘So I’ve been selected as mug of the day.’

He sighed, ‘I know it’s a penance, Silje, and I promise I’ll make it up to you in some way, as soon as I can, but I have no one else I can trust to do a good job with it. No one, including Borgil, expects you to get him off scot-free – both he and I know that is impossible, but if you can mitigate the punishment, even by a small amount, it would be enough. He knows the score, and does not expect miracles.’

‘I should hope not, as long as he realises that there is no way I can keep him out of jail. Attempted manslaughter would be miracle, if we could get it.’ She sighed heavily, ‘All right, dump it there. I’ll do my best, and wear my lowest cut blouse when I try to get a plea bargain out of the prosecutor.’

Sanderson chuckled grimly, ‘Let’s hope it isn’t Griselda then.’

It was their nickname for the Chief Prosecutor, Hanne Wendstrom, who many lawyers swore was directly descended from a bulldog. No low cut blouse would have an effect on her, except maybe to decide to increase the punishment of the defendant.

Silje heaved a huge sigh when Sandersen left her office. She could not have been more worried if he had dumped a ticking time bomb on her desk.

She got up and made herself a cup of coffee – anything to put off opening that file.

At least, she thought, the day could not possibly get any worse.

She was wrong.

Her desk phone rang, and she jumped nervously, spilling some of the liquid on the bottom of her skirt.

‘Faen!’ She swore as she picked up the receiver, and growled, ‘Yes?’ into the mouthpiece.

A worried voice asked, ‘Silje?’

Still annoyed about her skirt, she blurted, ‘Yes, it’s Silje. Who is that, and what do you want?’

‘It’s Marit.’

‘Marit? Marit who?’

‘Marit Linden. Who else?’

Marit – a woman she had had a short affair with at college, thirteen years ago, when she was struggling to come to terms with her sexuality, and hadn’t spoken to since. What the hell could she want, after all that time?

‘Who gave you my number?’

‘Your receptionist. I’ve rung half the legal firms in Oslo to find you.’

Oh, shit! She doesn’t want to rekindle that old affair, does she?

‘And why did you want to find me?’

‘Because you know people – legal people.’

‘Well, of course I do – I am one.’

‘I have to tell someone, and I thought you would be the best person – someone I know I can trust.’

‘Well, that’s a given, of course, but what can be so important that you had to go to the trouble of finding me?’

She heard a low sob, and then, ‘I know about a murder that is going to be committed, and who...’

Silje almost screamed, ‘Stop! Stop right there, Marit! If you were going to tell me any details about that kind of crime, don’t. For all sorts of reasons, not least of which is my own safety, I don’t want to know. You must tell the police.’

‘But I can’t, because...’

‘Stop! No details. Look, I know the head of the Serious Crimes Division, and you should talk to him. His name is Cnut - Sheriff Cnut. Give me your number, and I’ll get him to call you.’

She wrote down the number Marit dictated, and told her, ‘I’ll ring him now, and if he’s in his office, he should call you soon. Please don’t call me again.’

Saying that she knew Cnut was not strictly accurate, in a personal sense, but they had spoken a couple of times, concerning court cases.

She called Oslo police headquarters, and asked to be connected to him.

He was in his office, and remembered her, because of the perfume she wore – "Laila" – one favoured by Ilse for special occasions, but was puzzled why she should be ringing him.

She began with, ‘I’ve had a strange phone call from a woman I used to know, and she began to tell me that she knows about a murder that is going to be committed. I stopped her immediately, and told her I would ask you to phone her.’

‘You did the right thing.’

‘She scared me. I didn’t want to be involved.’

‘I don’t blame you. Give me her name and number.’

When she’d told him, he thanked her, and said he would contact Marit. He put the phone on ‘speaker’, so that Ilse could follow the conversation, and dialled the number.

She answered the phone after one ring, and asked breathlessly, ‘Sheriff Cnut?’

‘Yes, and you are Marit Linden?’

‘I am.’

‘You have some information about a crime that you think will be committed, I believe?’

‘Yes, and I don’t think it will happen – I know. I’m scared stiff I’ll be killed too, because I know about it.’

‘Give me the details.’

‘Not over the phone. It’s not secure.’

Oh, hell. Not another conspiracy freak. Give me a break.

‘I assure you this phone is perfectly secure.’

‘But mine is not.’

‘What do you suggest then?’

‘Can we meet somewhere in the open, perhaps a supermarket car park? They know I know about the murder, and I’m frightened for my life.’

Then you should come straight to the police station, you stupid woman. Oh, what the hell.

‘When?’

‘In half an hour?’

‘I suppose so. Which one?’

‘Bunnpris’. She gave the name of the one she used.

‘In Møllergaten?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll be using an unmarked white Volkswagen Passat.’

‘My car is a red Skoda Fabia, and I’ll be wearing a lime green suit.’

When he replaced the receiver on the cradle, shaking his head at the woman’s stupidity, Ilse asked, ‘Shall I come with you?’

Nick, the black Labrador they had rescued when its owner had been murdered, stood up, wagging his tail, and Cnut laughed, once again amazed at what the dog understood.

He was about to agree with Ilse, but instead said, ‘No. Perhaps you’d better not. She’ll be expecting me, but she’s obviously paranoid, and may be put off if anyone else is there. I’ll record what she says, and I’ll use the body cam, so that you can read her expression. Let’s have another quick cup of coffee before I have to leave.’

He turned into the Bunnpris parking lot exactly twenty-eight minutes into the thirty minutes the woman had stipulated.

The car park was three quarters full, but there was no red Skoda Fabia parked anywhere.

He frowned.

Had they, whoever ‘they’ were,  stopped her already?

He found a spot to park that would allow him a clear, fast exit if he needed it, set the handbrake, and climbed out.

As he did so, he saw the woman’s car enter. It slowed, as she scanned the area, looking for his car, and then drove slowly towards him.

She pulled up in the next but one bay, five metres or so from his Passat, and looked carefully around again, before getting out of the car.

He waited for her to come to him, and as she did so, sized her up.

A quite attractive blonde, she appeared to be in her early thirties and had a slightly turned-up nose, bright, intelligent eyes, and a firm jaw, yet he sensed a kind of fragility about her – from her over-slim body, thin, bony hands, and skin that seemed translucent.

He put his hand out for her to shake, and opened his mouth to speak.

Before he could, the air was full of the sound of a racing motor, and a motorcycle with a rider and pillion passenger roared into the parking lot.

It did a racing slide and stopped only a couple of meters away from Cnut and the woman.

The pillion passenger was holding an automatic pistol and without the slightest hesitation shot Marit twice in the face.

Then the pistol was turned on Cnut.

He stared into the muzzle, certain that he was only split-seconds from death. The accuracy of the first shots told him that he had no chance of escape if the murderer pulled the trigger.

Time stood still, the few seconds seeming like an eternity, as he waited for death with a coolness he could not comprehend.

There was no fear – no cold sweat – no tightening of the sphincter muscle – nothing – just a cool acceptance of the inevitable.

Then, unbelievably, the muzzle was turned away from him. The shooter fired a single shot into the front tyre of the Passat, and shoved the pistol back into the pocket of the leathers.

A hand was raised again in his direction, but this time it was to give him a one-fingered, rude salute, as the bike roared off again.

The whole thing had taken less than twenty seconds.

He had it all on camera, but the rider and pillion passenger were unidentifiable in thick leathers and large helmets, and the bike carried no registration plates.

Cursing, he called Dag Tromsø, his IT specialist, and told him, ‘A silver Kawasaki motorcycle with two black-leather-clad riders, left the ‘Bunnpris’ supermarket in Møllergaten about half a minute ago, heading south. I need them traced to wherever they went – immediately; get the SWAT team to stay in constant contact with you, and alert them about the shooters’ every move. They are armed and deadly dangerous, and have committed murder.’

‘On it, boss.’ Dag’s fingers were already racing across the keys.

Cnut then called Viv Blenke, the pathologist. For this murder, the SOCOs would not be needed at the scene. Time and manner of death were a matter of record, and the only forensics were the ejected cartridge cases.

Now it was time to find out why the woman had been killed, and Cnut had the feeling that it was not going to be easy.

He called the uniform division for crowd control men, slipped on a rubber glove to pick up the three cartridge cases, which he put in an evidence bag, went to the Fabia and took out everything he could find, including the woman’s handbag, and the contents of the glove compartment – several scraps of paper and a small Fujifilm camera, which he checked for saved photos, finding just one, of two unidentifiable men in a room, before putting it into the evidence bag, then used a tarpaulin from the boot of the Passat to cover the body, and stood by it, waving away the shoppers who were exiting the store, and others arriving to shop – all wanting to see what was going on, pleased when four uniforms arrived in response to his call.

He asked one of them to put the spare wheel on the Passat, used the on-board computer to check the Fabia registration and obtain the woman’s address, and only then rang Ilse, and gave her a watered-down version of the events, keeping it light-hearted, and not mentioning his brush with death, but she knew him too well.

She asked, ‘How close was I to losing you?’

He decided to be honest, ‘A damned sight too close for comfort.’

‘I had one of those someone just walked over my grave moments, and knew you were in trouble.’

‘I’m still here purely as a result of a momentary whim of the shooter that I will never understand. The front tyre of the car took the bullet instead of me. The only explanation I can think of is that they had their strict orders to kill the woman, and stuck rigidly to them.’

‘Remind me to thank the perp when we have him under lock and key.’

He chuckled, ‘If it’s a him. I had the impression of two females under that leather.’

‘Don’t tell me it was Kristen. She might have spared you for old time’s sake.’

She was referring to Kristen Tveit, the reporter who had at times been his hated nemesis, and at other times a good friend. With no breasts, and surgically enhanced nipples that always stood out under the tight head-to-foot black leather that she always wore as her personal trademark, it would have only taken a crash helmet to have fitted her up as the shooter.

He laughed, ‘I doubt it, but it could well have been.’

When he’d switched off the cell phone, he looked in the woman’s handbag, surprised at how sparse the contents were: a second set of keys, that were identical to those on the small bunch on the ring with the car ignition key, a handkerchief, two Tampax packets, a comb, a small writing pad whose pages were all blank, a pen, and a small pocket knife. He looked again at the single photo on the camera, and knew that it was of no use in the investigation, even though it might well show the criminals, because one of the men had his back to the camera, and the other was turned three quarters of the way round, so that only the side of his cheek was visible.

Both had short, brown hair. The room was unidentifiable, with just a bare wall visible at the back, and a small corner of what might be a wooden desk near the man on the right.

Linden had obviously thought the photo was important enough for her to take, but on its own it was useless.

Once the body had been loaded onto Viv’s ‘meat wagon’ and driven off for autopsy, and the constable had changed the wheel of the Passat, he climbed back into the car, returned to headquarters, and rushed upstairs to demand first of all of Dag, ‘Do you have them?’

Dag shrugged, ‘Yes and no, sir. They were easy to follow, and didn’t seem worried about cameras. They drove into the multi-storey car park in Altonsvei, and drove up to the top – the only floor where there are no cameras.

SWAT arrived within two minutes, and they’ve searched the entire building. The only motorcycles were two on the second floor – neither of them silver or a Kawasaki.

A brown VW van, a white Renault van, and a white Ford Transit drove out of that multi-storey in the minute following the motorcycle’s arrival, and I’m doing my best to follow them.’

‘Good thinking. One of them has the motorcycle inside it. Have you checked their registrations?’

Dag sighed, ‘That’s the thing, sir. All three registration plates are unreadable – daubed with mud or something.’

‘So they all belong to whatever organisation ordered the murder. Is there any chance of stopping one of them?’

‘I’ve passed their details to SWAT, and I’ve been updating them every time I get a sighting, but I haven’t seen the VW or the Ford for several minutes.’

‘They’ve been dumped. Where was the Renault when you last saw it?’

‘Going north-west on Karl Kjelsens Vei, but it hasn’t passed the next in the series of cameras on that road, and the roads leading off it, and going to the north of that last camera, are not covered by CCTV.’

‘Whoever is behind this is well organised, and not lacking in funds or people. Those other vans were decoys, and when SWAT finds them...’

Dag’s phone rang, and he listened to the message. When he switched off, he told Cnut, ‘They’ve already located the Ford and the Volkswagen, parked in supermarket car parks, and checked the ownership. Both were stolen earlier today. The steering wheels and door handles have been wiped clean of prints.’

‘And the drivers disappeared into the stores, and no doubt came out wearing different clothes, and hats that covered their faces. We’re up against some serious professionals, and they are not locals. I need to have words with some people.’

Dag knew Cnut was talking about his small army of ‘snouts’ – borderline criminals who kept their noses to the ground, for their own safety, and who were willing to impart some of their clandestine information for money, and the possibility of leniency the next time they were caught in a criminal act.

Back in his inner office, Cnut drained the mug of coffee Ilse had ready for him, then picked up the phone and began dialling numbers.

She listened as he spoke to half a dozen different individuals, and when he finally hung up the phone, said, ‘You are going to be busy this evening. We’d better leave the subgum-gai-pan until tomorrow, and have those thirty-day aged steaks with fries and a side salad. Twenty minutes max from start to finish.’

‘Good thinking, Batwoman.’

‘It’s a pity that woman wasn’t able to tell you who is going to be murdered.’

He shrugged, ‘I guess we’ll find that out in the days to come. I have the feeling that it has to be someone in the higher echelons of society – someone important. They would not go to so much trouble otherwise, but I’m going to have every death in Greater Oslo reported directly to me for the next month – natural deaths, suicides, and all others, suspicious or not.’

Ilse chuckled, ‘Oh, come on, Cnut. In an average year, just over four thousand people die in Oslo, according to the published figures. That’s about eighty a week. We’ll be swamped.’

He shrugged, ‘There’ll be a lot of extra work, it’s true, but we’ll be able to quickly discard  most of the deaths. There’ll be very few that need close attention.

For now, let’s go to the woman’s address and see if we can find any clues to what she knew. I’ll give Ari Blank a ring, and have him and a couple of his team come with us. We won’t need a locksmith – I have her keys.’

‘What’s the address?’

‘Sixty-four, Eva Landis Vei.’

His cell phone did its intro to Beethoven’s Fifth, and he glanced at the screen, chuckled and switched the phone off.’

Ilse asked, ‘Was that who I think it was?’

He nodded, ‘We talked her up, didn’t we?’

‘I don’t think so. She will have heard of the shooting, and of your involvement, within minutes of it happening. I’m surprised she hasn’t called before now. You know you’ll have to talk to her, or she’ll pester the lives out of us.’

‘I know, but she can stew for a while. I have other fish to fry.’

He rang the head of the SOCO team and gave him the address and a brief rundown of what was required, and then told Ilse, ‘You drive. I have Linden’s phone in the bag, and I want to do a thorough check on it. We need to speak to all her contacts. One or more of them might know what she knew.’

As Ilse pulled out of the headquarters car park, he switched the woman’s phone on,